nchantment was upon her. The Exhibition had her by the hair. She was
borne on, breathless, unprotesting, to the white palings where the
paygate was.

It was worth it. She had to own it. Never before had either of them
tasted such ecstasy; from the precipitous climb in the truck that hauled
them, up and up, to the head of the high diamonded stair; the brief,
exciting passage along the gangway to the boat that waited for them, its
prow positively overhanging the topmost edge, the sliding lip of danger,
where the rails plunged shining to the blackness below; the race they
had for the front seat where, Ranny said, they would get the best of it;
and then--the downrush!

It was as if they had been shot, exulting, from the sky to the water,
sitting close, sitting tight, linked together, each with an arm round
the other's waist, and the hand that was free grasping the rail, their
bodies bowed to the hurricane of their speed, with the rapture in their
throats mounting and mounting, a towering, toppling climax of delight
and fear, as the boat shot from the rails into the water and rose like
a winged thing and leaped, urging to the heights that had sent it forth,
and dropped, perilously again, with a shudder and a smack, once, twice;
so tremendous was the impetus.

They heard young girls behind them scream for joy; but they were dumb,
they were motionless; they drank rapture through set teeth; it went
throbbing through them and thrilling, prolonging its brief life in
exquisite reverberations.

And as if that wasn't enough, they went and did it all over again.

And Winny struggled; she tried to hold him back; she put forth all her
innocent guile; she pitted her fragile charm against the stupendous
magic of the Exhibition. She loitered, spellbound to all appearance, in
the bazaar, before the streaming, shining booths that poured out their
strange merchandise, Italian, French, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese.

"I don't want to do anything but walk about and look at things," she
said. "Why, we might have traveled for years and not seen as much."

Winny seemed to be scoring points in the bazaar.

Then, before she knew where she was, Ranny, with all the power of the
Exhibition at his back, had bought her a present, a little heart-shaped
brooch made of Florentine turquoises.

That came of looking at things. She might have known it would.

"I'm tired of these shops," said Winny. "We shall be too late to hear
anything of the band.